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Martin O'Malley Wants Maryland to Reject Facism

by Sunnivie Brydum

Martin O'Malley has never been one to mince words. The former governor of Maryland, former mayor of Baltimore, and one-time presidential candidate has been campaigning hard for Hillary Clinton (and against Donald Trump) since he dropped out of the race for the White House in February. Pinned to the top of his Twitter timeline is a graphic touting how O'Malley believes the 2016 president election is "choice between freedom and fascism."

As residents in his home state went to to the polls Tuesday afternoon, O'Malley issued a challenge to his fellow Marylanders: Defeat Trump by the largest margin of any state voting in the 2016 general election. He tweeted, "Hey Maryland: Polls are open til 8pm. Let's beat that fascist @realdonaldtrump."

According to RealClearPolitics' analysis of likely voters in the days before the election, Marylanders might be on target to fulfill O'Malley's request. Ahead of Election Day, Clinton was leading in all major polls conducted in the state — sometimes by a margin as large as 36 points. Even the closest poll featured on RealClearPolitics showed Clinton besting Trump in Maryland by 29 points.

O'Malley's classification of Trump as a facist isn't the only name he's called the Republican presidential nominee. During his speech at the Democratic National Convention, O'Malley called Trump a "racist bully."

"Donald Trump is a bigot. Donald Trump is a racist," O'Malley said on a June 26 episode of CNN's State of the Union. "Donald Trump is in fact making fascist appeals. Donald Trump is an unstable charlatan who is appealing to the worst instincts in people, and I believe ultimately, the American people are going to reject that."

As far back as the second Democratic candidate debate, way back in November 2015, O'Malley has been letting Trump hear his unadulterated opinion about the reality TV star business mogul:

"The fact of the matter is, and let's say it in our debate, because you'll never hear this from that immigrant-bashing carnival barker Donald Trump," O'Malley said. "The truth of the matter is net immigration from Mexico from last year was zero." Even though he's long been out of the presidential race, O'Malley seems just as determined to take down Trump until this election's bitter end.